iPods and mobile phones the new climate enemy

The amount of energy used up by luxury gadgets could triple in the coming decades, an international agency has warned.

Demand for power-thirsty gadgets like mobile phones, iPods and big-screen TVs is undoing efficiency gains elsewhere, the International Energy Agency said today.

The agency urged developed governments to keep pace with the invention of new consumer devices when crafting efficiency standards and implored people to make thriftier choices.

It warned that otherwise energy used by personal and household electronic devices could triple by 2030.

Energy consumption is associated with carbon emissions because most electricity is generated from burning high-carbon fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

But consumers don't have to curb their appetite for ever more clever and fashionable gadgets – provided they choose the most efficient versions available.

"There is a way of having our cake and eating it at the same time by being much more proactive on efficiency," said agency analyst Paul Waide.

"We can hold total consumption at today's levels by using best available technologies, despite a dramatic growth in use."

Mr Waide said governments have generally been reluctant to introduce policies for these types of products because they change so rapidly.

"They need to be less hung up on what they call the product and focus on functions," he said, referring to categories such as surfing the internet.

Technologies were already available to improve efficiency by at least 40 per cent across most appliances, the report found, but uptake depends on choices by fickle consumers.

"The extent of savings is large, however the energy and financial savings on individual residential appliances often appear insignificant to consumers," it said.

Green activists have dubbed 2009 as the year of climate change because of a December deadline to agree to a UN-led global climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

But rising home energy use underlines how dramatic action on climate change would require action by individuals as well as governments. The report underlined the difficulty of cutting greenhouse gases as people's lifestyles became increasingly affluent.

Residential electricity consumption has been growing in all regions of the world at an average of 3.4 per cent a year since 1990, the report said.

In many rich countries electricity use by appliances which had previously accounted for most usage – white goods such as refrigerators and clothes washers – was now falling.

But the growth in use of electronic devices such as iPods, games consoles, TVs and computers had more than offset those falls.

Electricity consumption by TV sets in the US had risen by more than three times in the past 10 years, the report said. Power use for heating and refrigeration fell.

The study estimated that the number of people using a PC would pass one billion this year.

There were already close to 2 billion TV sets in use and more than half of the global population subscribed to a mobile telephone service.

source: http://www.news.com.au/

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